


A Fair Chance

by the_warm_beige_color



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Fae & Fairies, Multi, Race is a fae, Spot is a blacksmith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-06-23 16:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_warm_beige_color/pseuds/the_warm_beige_color
Summary: "Hey, Handsome.”Spot sighed. “Good morning, Race.”“That it is! Especially now that you’re in it, sweetheart.” Spot let his arm fall to his side and leveled the intruder with his least impressed look.There he was, the twit that had served as a recurring nuisance at Spot’s workplace for the last couple months following the May Day festival.———In which Spot is a blacksmith and Race is a member of the fair folk with no self-preservation instinct who flirts endlessly with Spot.





	1. Chapter 1

Spot tossed the finished horseshoe in the bucket to cool with its brothers and paused to wipe his face. It was high summer, and though Spot worked out of the sun, the inside of the sweltering forge was hardly a reprieve from the heat. 

It was a quiet morning. The only sound in the last couple hours had been the rhythmic ringing of his hammer striking metal. A rarity Spot had savored as he worked, replenishing his recently depleted supply of horseshoes he tried to keep handy. 

A troupe had come through in the past week and had woken in the morning to find all their horses missing their shoes. The re-shoeing hadn’t taken much time, but the performers spent just about all of it cursing the hills the town sat on, which, really, was just asking for trouble. When it was finally done, the performers were glad to be on the road again, and Spot, glad to be rid of them. 

Life went on. 

Mush had complained to him yesterday about a broken threshing flail and would bring it by that afternoon. So in the meantime, Spot took advantage of the quiet, set his body to a task he could do in his sleep, and let his mind wander. 

Alas, all good things come to an end.

“Hey, Handsome.”

Spot sighed, realigned his swing and struck the half-complete shoe before answering.

“Good morning, Race.”

“That it is! Especially now that you’re in it, sweetheart.” Spot let his arm fall to his side and leveled the intruder with his least impressed look.

There he was, the twit that had served as a recurring nuisance at Spot’s workplace for the last couple months following the May Day festival. 

Said nuisance grinned back unabashedly around the pipe between his teeth. 

It wasn’t obvious from a glance what Race was, but if Spot took the time to really look at Race, his eyes were just feline enough, his skin tinged just blue enough, his teeth just sharp enough to prove he wasn’t human. 

And sure, Spot should be a little more concerned about this, a member of the fair folk showing up on his doorstep, taking very obvious interest in him. He had been concerned, that first time Race appeared in the morning, acting for all the world like there was nothing different or strange about a fae showing up in an iron forge to flirt with the worker therein. 

Not that he wasn’t cautious still. He minded what he said, never using ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’ and he never told the fae his name. He wore a ring of raw iron on his thumb and never took it off. 

So why he’d chosen Spot, a blacksmith, as the object of his amorous endeavors, Spot had no idea. Spot himself was very content in his relationship status. So while he didn’t tell the fae to get lost, he had no problem making it very clear what he thought of Race’s frankly horrible pickup lines. 

To his ever-growing exasperation, each rejection just delighted the fae more. Spot resolutely refused to entertain the notion that he, too, might have begun to enjoy their banter over the last months, or that his hesitancy to tell Race to leave might not stem from wariness. 

“Didja miss me?” Race sauntered over to Spot, neatly sidestepping the iron splinters that littered the floor of Spot’s workspace. He leaned back against a table, bare feet kicked out in front of him, and took his pipe out of his mouth. Spot raised an eyebrow.

“Miss you spoiling my peace? I have work to do.” 

Race, unperturbed, smiled wider. “I’m spoilin’ for a piece of you – can you work on that?” 

“No.”

Race let his head fall back and heaved a sigh at the ceiling. “Whatever happened to romance?”

Spot snorted. “You call that romance?” Race raised his head, a wounded expression on his face, but it went away when he saw the smile pulling at one corner of Spot’s mouth.

The sprite pushed off the table. He wandered around the building, and Spot resumed his work. They passed the morning in uncharacteristic silence. Finally, when Spot finished his last shoe, Race spoke.

“Do you ever make anything impractical?”

“I try not to.” 

“Hm.” He turned back towards Spot. “What if I asked you to?”

Spot’s brow furrowed. “I…guess that would depend?”

“Hm.” Race walked out, leaving a very perplexed Spot standing in the workshop, which is how Mush found him a minute later when he walked in. 

“Heya, Spot! Say, what’s wrong with your face?”

Spot shook his head; he could try and puzzle out Race later.

“I was wonderin’ how I got stuck being friends with a mutt like you. You bring the flail?” 

Mush held it up. “Right here,” and handed it over. 

Spot inspected it. “Yeah, I can fix this for ya.” They agreed on a price and sealed it with a spit-shake. Spot forgot all about Race’s strange behavior.

———

He forgot it all the way up until a month later when Race said out of nowhere, “I want you to make me a timbrel.”

Spot frowned. “A what?”

“A timbrel. A jingling drum. It makes the most delightful sound. I want you to make me one.” Spot thought, and vaguely remembered one of the performers from a month ago having something fitting that description. If that were the case…

“I don’t have the materials to make that.” Whatever metal had been used in the instrument didn’t have the same properties as iron or steel. 

“Hm.” A pause. “Y’know, if you took that ring off your finger I could find you a much prettier one.”

Spot huffed. “I would have thought that the fair folk didn’t do the whole engagement and marriage deal.” His fingers twisted the iron around his thumb.

Race looked up at him through his lashes. “We don’t. You humans are weird. Is that a yes?”

“No, Racer.” 

———

This time, not even a week had passed before Race brought it up again. He placed a bag on the table. “Will this work?”

Spot looked at the bag, then back at Race. “Will what work?”

Race opened the bag and turned out its contents onto the table. A number of small, oddly shaped ingots of a bright metal rolled out, and Spot picked one up to inspect it. “What’re these for?” The fae looked at him expectantly.

“The timbrel.”

“What do you want for them?”

“The timbrel, I just said.”

“That’s it?” Spot looked quizzically at Race. That couldn’t be all he wanted. The fair folk were known for being…inventive in their business dealings. 

Race looked affronted. “Of course not. You’ll receive payment. What do you take me for?” Spot thought dubiously about the differences in what a human and a fae might deem as acceptable payment. Even so, it could be dangerous to refuse payment. 

Spot could always just refuse the commission, and that’s what his common sense told him to do. 

“Ok. I’ll do it.” Wait. 

Race beamed. “Fantastic! When you’ve finished you can bring it to the gardener’s house.” He reached out a hand; Spot took a half step back. In all the months that he’d known Race, the sprite had never touched him. Race paused.

“Your payment,” he explained, and reached out again, fingers splaying across Spot’s chest. Spot could feel the cold of his touch seeping through the material of his shirt. Race pressed slightly against his sternum, and Spot felt himself exhale. When he breathed in again, the air was suddenly cool and clear, filled with a vigor that seemed to spread through his whole body. Reflexively, he breathed deep, feeling his chest expand under Race’s palm. When he’d filled his lungs, he held his breath, subconsciously loathe to let any of it escape.

Race drew back his hand, and with that the spell was broken, and Spot breathed normally. The air was again hot and smoky from the forge, and Spot couldn’t help but wonder if he’d imagined the difference. 

Race rolled on the balls of his feet. “Yep, that ought to do it,” he said, pleased. “See ya, Spot.” He walked out, following the emerging pattern of leaving Spot baffled in his wake. 

Spot rubbed his thumb over the place where Race had put his hand. Then he looked at the metal ingots on the table, gleaming in the morning light. He’d made a deal with a fae. No going back now.


	2. Chapter 2

A small, handheld drum sat slightly lopsided on the table. Spot glared reproachfully at it. It continued to sit there, utterly unrepentant in the way that only inanimate objects can be. How hard could it be to make a wooden circle with some leather thrown over the top? Apparently, damn hard.

The first attempt was smoldering in the fireplace, facing its due punishment. This second attempt still looked a little odd, but Spot figured that was as good as it was going to get. The blasted thing wasn’t even finished yet. Spot still had to make and attach the disks.

He could’ve just had Kelly make the wooden base of the drum, and focused on the metal part, but he hadn’t. It was a point of pride. Race had asked him, Spot, to make this, so he would make this. All of it. Plus, if he took it to the other villagers, there would be questions. The fair folk were a known entity, the town sat at the base of a mound for goodness sake, but they still tried to avoid interaction when possible. It wouldn’t sit well that Spot had made a deal with one.

He set aside the drum, and took out the bag of the strange metal again. The metal he’d seen used in the performer’s instrument had looked like some kind of copper base. This was different.

The metal, when it melted, shimmered and seemed to radiate its own light. It was incredible to work with, pouring smoothly, responding to the slightest prompt. He was almost disappointed when he finished, ten little disks gleaming up at him like unblinking golden eyes. Meticulously, he secured the pairs of disks into the more-or-less evenly spaced slits in the rim of the drum. Then he stepped back and surveyed his work.

All in all, he’d done well. What lay before him was indisputably a musical instrument. Maybe not one made by the most masterful of hands, but an instrument nonetheless.

He picked it up, softly tapped his fingers against the hide that made the drum, then, out of curiosity, gave it a little shake. The sound that emerged seemed to brighten the air. Still, something about it unnerved him. He set it back down, carefully.

\----

Spot closed early that day. He wrapped up the timbrel in a cloth, put it in a pack slung across his back, and set out for the edge of town. The gardener’s house, Race had said. That could only be Henry’s place.

Henry and his husband Elmer were something of a town mystery. They lived further up the hill than most people deemed sensible, and didn’t come down into town much. Spot had spoken briefly with Henry before and had only met Elmer in passing, but knew that Henry tended to an extensive garden. Occasionally Elmer would be seen around, selling some of the excess crop and buying flour from the mill or meat from the butcher. Town gossip held that they were friends of the fair folk, and judging by Race’s casual instruction to bring it to their house, the rumors had some truth to them.

Now there again, Spot thought, he was a friend of a fae, too, if his relationship with Race could be called a friendship.

Spot followed the path uphill through the forest for about a half hour before the woods opened into a small clearing in which sat a nondescript house. Vines climbed the walls and grew thickly around the door and windows, one shuttered, the other open.

The house seemed caught in a moment in time, motionless, that is until someone passed in front of the open window, startling Spot near death. The person, obviously having registered Spot’s presence, walked backwards into view again to look out the window. Seeing that there was indeed a person in their yard, they whooped, and disappeared from the window to reappear opening the door and stepping outside. Spot could see now that it was Elmer, from the mop of brown hair on his head and the open smile on his face.

“Spot!” he exclaimed, crossing to him. “Hey! Come on inside, we’ve been expecting you.” He clapped Spot on the shoulder and began walking back towards the house. Spot, bewildered, followed, leaving footprints behind him in the tall grass.

Elmer talked more than Spot would have expected from a mysterious hermit living in the woods, more than making up for any lack of conversation on Spot’s part.

“Henry’s out back, checking to see what’s ripe for dinner— of course you have to stay for dinner! Henry’s a great cook, and there’s more than enough.” Without stopping for breath, he wiped each of his feet, stepped in the house, and beckoned for Spot to come in as well. He did, the low hanging tendrils of the vines brushing over his head, and Elmer closed the door behind him.

“Race told us you’d be along sometime, didn’t really specify when, but that doesn’t matter. Oh, feel free to kick your shoes off there. Or if you’d rather not, that’s fine too! I just like not wearing shoes when possible.” Elmer made his way through the house, weaving around an armchair, table, a basket of blankets, and shelves with all manner of things on them.

Elmer opened a door on the opposite wall of the house and stepped out, calling to someone outside. “Hey, Henry, look who showed up!” Spot’s eyes widened.

The back of the house opened out into larger clearing where the earth more-or-less leveled off. Steps led down to the ground from the porch he currently stood on, and from his vantage point he could see over the tops of the trees and on down the hill, with the sky stretching across it all. Down in the yard, a garden grew in neat lines, a pit lay for a fire, and a water well stood reaching down deep into the hill.

A head popped up from the garden. Then the rest of the body emerged, and Henry was walking up toward the house carrying a basket. For the first time since Spot had arrived, the stream of words from Elmer had stopped. Spot looked over.

Elmer was leaning against the porch railing, looking down at Henry coming up to him and smiling. He was a young man in love and happy to be so, and at that moment, nothing mattered more than the sight of his love in the afternoon sun, in the home they’d built together.

Henry came up the stairs and Elmer kissed him on the cheek before grabbing the basket. “This looks great, honey,” he said, and took the basket inside the house. Henry looked fondly after him for a moment, then turned to Spot, who was putting a considerable amount of effort into melting into the woodwork.

“Hey, Spot,” he held out his hand, “been a while. How are ya?”

Spot grinned, and clasped Henry’s hand. “Been good, Henry, and yourself?”

Henry smiled back. “Been alright.” He gestured to Spot’s pack. “That Race’s delivery?”

“Yeah, should I give it to you?” Spot hand went to the strap, but Henry shook his head.

“You hold onto it for now.” He moved inside and Spot followed. “How did you get to know Race?”

“He showed up one day at the forge and refused to leave. How do you know him, if you don’t mind me asking?” Spot sat down with Elmer at the table.

“Oh, I’ve known the Racer for a couple years. Him and a couple others are regulars around here. Apparently us ‘humans are fascinating.’ I think they’re just itching to be above ground, and they know we won’t chase them off with pitchforks.”

“No, we just shoo at them with a broom,” said Elmer.

“Only when they deserve it,” returned Henry, sounding completely confident in his judgment. The effect was helped by the very efficient way in which he chopped the vegetables. Spot was perfectly content differing to his authority on broom-shooing.

“It doesn’t worry you? Them hanging around so much?” Spot asked.

“No,” Henry said. Elmer shrugged and shook his head.

“How?”

“So,” he paused, “Henry is not my given name. It’s my chosen name, and I chose it for a very specific reason.” He added the vegetables to a pot. “Henry, meaning ‘ruler of the house.’ This is our house. They have no authority when they step on this property. Whatever happens here, only happens with Elmer’s and my consent.”

Spot stared. “Chosen names have that kind of power? I thought that was only true names?”

“It depends on how much you invest in it. It so happens that I’ve chosen to invest quite a lot.” Henry and Elmer looked at each other over the table.

Spot considered for a moment just how much a nineteen-year-old would have to give to have that kind of power and assurance, and then he very carefully stopped.

The conversation moved to other topics as Henry prepared dinner; apparently, by mutual agreement, Elmer generally refrained from cooking. The food was delicious and Spot quite thoroughly cleared his plate.

By that time, the sun was setting. Spot could see it casting shadows on the valley out the door.  
Henry saw where he looked and nodded. “Yeah, it’s time for you to start heading back.”

\---

“I guess Race isn’t gonna show,” Spot said as they stepped back out the front. He would have thought that Race would come for his ‘jingling drum’ if he’d specifically asked him to come here, but who knew with the fair folk?

The fae in question, of course, chose that moment to swing around a tree into view. “Show what? My irresistible powers of seduction? Well, if you insist-”

Spot cut him off. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Ah see, but I would!”

“Racer, you’d bet on anything,” Henry butted in good-naturedly.

Race slapped a hand to his chest, mock-offended. “I’m here, bein’ a proper gentleman, offerin’ to walk this young man home, and you abuse me like this? Henry.”

“But you haven’t offered yet, Race,” Henry stage-whispered.

“Oh!” Race turned to Spot, bowed extravagantly, and extended his hand with a flourish. “Allow me to accompany you home?”

Spot chuckled. “You can walk with me back to the village. Beyond that is probably a bad idea.”

“Ok, sourpuss.”

Spot turned to Henry and Elmer. “Thank you so much for having me, dinner was delicious.”

“Absolutely! Be sure to come back soon!” Elmer smiled and the couple waved as Spot and Race left.

They set off down the path back down the hill, testing their wit on each other as they went. When they had nearly arrived, Race stopped.

“This is where I’ll leave you. Do you have the timbrel?”

Spot dug it out from his pack and presented it. Race took it, shook it, and smiled ear to ear. In the fae’s case the expression was almost literal.

“Amazing! This is wonderful! And did you enjoy their company? Elmer and Henry’s?”

“Yes,” Spot answered truthfully, “but why did you have me go there? Why didn’t you just come pick it up at the forge?”

“I like having all my eggs in one basket.”

“I’m not an egg. Also, that’s generally considered a bad thing.”

“Eh, I’ll take my chances.”

“You are awful fond of flirting with chance.”

“And as fun as it is, I’m much fonder of flirting with you.” Race grinned.

Spot smiled back, despite himself. “Goodnight, Race.”

This time, when Race bowed, he took one of Spot’s hands in his, and before Spot had time to react, he pressed his lips to the back of the blacksmith’s hand.

“Goodnight, Spot.” Then he was gone. Minutes passed. When Spot could no longer hear the tinkling of the timbrel, he flexed his hand, and began his walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who commented or gave kudos! School is kicking my butt this semester, but all of your comments and kudos are so incredibly encouraging!! So just thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun to write, my gosh, I learned so much! This is supposed to be set sometime in the 13th century ad. and i know nothing about metal/ironworking, so there were a lot of wikipedia tabs open. I'm so excited to write the rest! y'all have no idea what all's coming....
> 
> For reference:  
> Humans- Spot, Jack, Mush, Kath, Crutchie, Henry, Elmer, JoJo, Specs, Buttons, Tommy-Boy  
> Fair Folk- Race, Finch, Albert, Mike, Ike, Romeo, Smalls
> 
> I'm on tumblr @wristwatch6minslow if you wanna say hi!


End file.
